Space Chase

In this space sim, you play Kayron Jarvis, a young pilot who has just come into possession of an extremely powerful spaceship, the Darkstar One, at the onset of an alarming rise in interstellar tension. The mysterious bad guys have decided to attack all the other races, and it's up to our hero to get to the bottom of it all.

A big selling point of Darkstar One was the idea that you'd have some real choices as to how to play. Peaceful merchant? Dastardly pirate? Hardcore mercenary? The choice was supposed to be yours, but the plot renders many of the choices absurd. For example, it doesn't make much sense, given Kayron's background, that he would turn pirate, particularly as it makes pursuing his overall mission significantly harder.

There are plenty of geeks who don't give a damn about a game's plot, and for them Darkstar One could be a highly entertaining space sim ' one with a simple yet satisfying economic system and more ship-to-ship combat than the final battle scene in Star Wars, Episode IV.